Folks at Maria’s Cafe are blasted with cooling fans while they devour breakfast tacos. In its over 35 years of existence as an iconic breakfast taco staple, owner Maria Beza said she’s felt her small diner get hotter and hotter.
A 25-year-old air conditioning unit hangs from the ceiling over seven tables and 30 chairs inside the small, 600-square-foot cafe.
It’s giving out, Beza said, so she put several fans throughout the cafe to make sure customers eat comfortably. Earlier this summer, she installed a mini split AC unit in the kitchen for her staff.
“We can feel it. When it’s too hot outside, it feels hot in here, too,” Beza said as the cafe closed on a recent Wednesday. “When we get people, yes, we’re sweating back and forth.”
Maria’s Cafe, located at 1105 Nogalitos St., is in what’s considered San Antonio’s “Urban Heat Island,” where experts say the heat intensity is at least 8°F hotter than its surroundings. So 90°F just outside the city makes it feels like 98°F or higher.
Across the city, a combined more than 1.2 million people live in these heat-intense areas. But some residents feel it more acutely than others.
“We know that these low-income communities of color face the impact the hardest because of historical things that have happened that leaves these communities less prepared,” said Kate Jaceldo, climate adaptation manager for the city’s office of sustainability at a June 26 pilot workshop.
“… Less tree cover, more concrete, those things impact [neighborhoods],” she said.
The Low Income Community Resilience project meeting took place in the South San neighborhood — an area disproportionately hotter than other pockets of San Antonio — to learn what people affected by extreme heat want to help mitigate the impacts.
The world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 4.5 degrees above preindustrial levels this century, which would cause catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, according to Guardian survey published in May.
The health consequences of hotter temperatures can be extreme. Respiratory problems, dehydration and tiredness can lead to increased risks of heat stroke-related mortality. People with underlying health conditions like asthma, high blood pressure and heart disease are at a higher risk.
Seniors told city officials that it costs more to stay home to stay cool, because having the air conditioner on runs electric bills up, and several people reported no cooling centers within walking distance of their homes.
Others said they had too many unshaded bus stops, hot, metal benches at walking trails and no splash pads near their neighborhoods.
“Any library, if you don’t have a car, is going to take two or three bus stop exchanges to get there, or you have to pay a high Uber rate,” said Debra Ponce, a community member who attended the public meeting.
One resident, Maria Cristina Medina, said staying home all day and running the AC brings her bill up to $250 a month. Her regular bill is usually under $70, she said.
She pulled out a CPS Energy bill at the table which showed she owed $260 on July 8.
Others who don’t have central air and only window air-conditioning units reported placing a curtain in the middle of a room to keep cool air in certain parts of the house, having all blinds down for maximum shade indoors and taking several showers a day.
After the session, seniors signed up to help researchers track how hot it gets inside their homes by picking up digital thermometers on their way out. Temperatures will be reported twice weekly to Fuerza Unida, an environmental justice nonprofit, which partnered with the city to collect heat data.
“There’s a lot of things we can do, but what is going to bring a better life to them?” Jalcedo asked.
At a July 16 Cool Neighborhood meeting at Carver Library, East Side residents were invited to a resource fair, where Metro Health, the San Antonio Fire Department, CPS Energy and Parks and Recreation shared resources and information with residents on how to mitigate heat.
The city informed residents there are over 30 cooling centers, which are inside public libraries, senior centers and community centers. Project Cool also gives seniors and people with disabilities free fans.
Jessica Payan, a West Side resident, attended the meeting and signed up for CPS Energy’s Casa Verde program.
The program helped install black screens to the windows on her home two years ago. To save on energy costs, she stopped using her central AC and added mini split AC units in the living room and two bedrooms.
She recently installed two fans in her living room and kitchen, and keeps them running so it feels cooler in the house, and added solar panels to her home four years ago.
On a recent Wednesday, Payan’s central AC was set to 78 degrees, but it still felt fresh inside her home, thanks to all the measures she’s taken to keep cool and save costs.
She hopes the Casa Verde program will help add insulation to her roof, so her attic isn’t so hot.
“It’s steps you can take to make sure your house is going to [keep] cool, not now but into the future, because it’s going to get hotter.”
